Wolverines figure to make their mark at state math meet
Wiscasset Middle High School math teacher Marija Randall likes her team’s chances at the upcoming Maine State Math Meet. The odds are, they’ll have a pretty good showing and will do even better next year.
“We’re a young team made up of mostly sophomores and juniors. That means we’ll get a lot of experience. I’m pretty excited and so is my team,” she told the Wiscasset Newspaper.
The meet set for Tuesday, April 2 is sponsored by the Maine State Principals Association. It’s a daylong event at the Augusta Civic Center on the same floor where high school basketball teams recently went toe-to-toe to determine the Western Maine conference champions.
“They set up tables side by side around the gym. It’s pretty impressive after everyone gets settled into their seat and the competition gets underway,” she added.
The competitors get a clipboard and use pencils and paper to figure out the math problems. “They have a certain amount of time to come up with the right answer for each problem,” Randall continued. “Proctors walk around the gym to insure everyone is playing by the rules.”
Randall said the meet involves almost every high school in the state, separated into classes, A, B, C and D based on a school’s enrollment. WMHS will compete against other class D schools. In 2018, the Wolverines finished 20th overall.
WMHS held its own at the recent Mountain Valley Conference math meet hosted by Spruce Mountain High School in Jay. Eight other high schools took part involving about 75 participants, including five Wolverines.
Gabby Leavitt placed second and Matt Eckert third among the sophomores. Both the MVC and State meets have six individual rounds; two team rounds, and two relay rounds.
Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Terry Wood and WMHS Principal Charles Lomonte took notice of Leavitt and Eckert’s success. At the March 26 school committee meeting, Wood called it another “wow moment” for the high school.
Other members of the Wolverine math team are senior Megan DeLong, juniors Gage Varian, Dylan Young, Kaitlyn Main and Muhammad Khalique, sophomores Kyle Ricker and Ty DeLong and freshman Dillon Leeman.
Randall said her team meets for practice twice a week after school from 2:20 to 3:30; they were hard at work Thursday afternoon, March 28.
“We solve problems like ... finding the value of “x” if 25+9=x,” she said.
